Germany vs. Google

[mdegges]

Germany's Privacy Protection agency has been busy trying to defend its citizen's online privacy rights which have been exploited commercially and politically in the past few years. But it seems that their attention is focused on somewhat minor issues, like facebook "like" plugins and fan pages:

"Facebook builds a broad individual and for members even a personalized profile. Such a profiling infringes German and European data protection law. [Privacy Protection] expects from website owners in Schleswig-Holstein to immediately stop the passing on of user data to Facebook in the USA by deactivating the respective services." [1]

While I understand Germany's reaction to these issues, it seems odd that they're banning the use of certain plugins because they don't agree with the way that user information is stored and made available.

"...It wasn't so long ago, after all, that East Germans found themselves under constant surveillance by the Stasi -- the Ministry for State Security set up under Soviet influence that had citizens spying on citizens, files kept on ordinary people and reviewed for warning signs.

"Facebook and Google, of course, store and sell users' data for commercial, rather than political, purposes. Individual Germans occasionally feel their state and federal governments are overreacting. But consider the Google-China case, where Google alleged that the data stolen pertained to journalists, U.S. officials, and Chinese activists. Just because web companies are currently collecting data for apolitical purposes doesn't mean the data can't be used -- whether stolen or not -- in a way other than was originally intended. Perhaps, even as a growing lobbyist staff attempts to chip away at German resistance, other countries could start following Germany's example." [2]

Should search engines and social media sites (Google & Facebook) have the right to store and sell user data? In addition, should these sites actually comply with government requests to censor information? It's happening all the time with content removal requests, and the majority of these are being granted.

If you look in that link, you'll see that Germany made 2,405 requests for items to be removed on google.de. 86% of these were fully or partially complied with. It seems a little hypocritical that they're banning apps that supposedly infringe upon German rights, but they participate in censoring Google webpages.

[softwareNerd]

Looking at the details, the bulk of German take-downs came from court-orders in defamation cases. I wonder if their defamation laws are somewhat strict.

On the broader issue, one cannot object to companies are using user-information if those users have agreed to such use.

[mdegges]

Looking at the details, the bulk of German take-downs came from court-orders in defamation cases. I wonder if their defamation laws are somewhat strict.

On the broader issue, one cannot object to companies are using user-information if those users have agreed to such use.

Yes, they censored nazi-promoting websites and images. "We receive lists of URLs from BPjM, a federal government youth protection agency in Germany, for sites that contain content that violates German youth protection law, like content touting Nazi memorabilia, extreme violence or pornography, and we may remove those search results from google.de."

Doesn't it depend on what the data is being used for, especially if specifics are not stated in the TOS? I think there's a big ethical issue about using search engine indexing/ranking stats for political purposes. But it's not just on Google's part. The US in particular has subpoenaed Google multiple times for web addresses and search information which would leak user identities. Isn't it crazy that this information can be obtained by governments so easily? "By asserting its power over search engines, using threats of force, the government can directly affect what the Internet experience is."